Summersell Center – Department of History

Summersell Center Presses Forward on Multiple Fronts

April 11, 2024

The Frances S. Summersell Center for the Study of the South launched a series of new initiatives during the 2023-2024 academic year that continue to build on student ideas and leadership. Dr. John Giggie was awarded a CARSCA grant to fund efforts in the digital humanities for the Alabama Memory Project. Last summer, Dr. Giggie and Vivian Malone Fellow and doctoral student Isabella Garrison led a team of nine students in the creation of a new digital archive to hold […]

Summersell Center Partners with Elmore County Black History Museum

May 18, 2023

The Summersell Center for the Study of the South’s (SCSS) spring semester has produced new research for its lynching research initiative, the Alabama Memory Project. Eighteen undergraduate researchers are working to document the lives of the thirty known victims of lynching in Elmore County, Alabama, attempting to reconstruct the entirety of the victims’ lives, not just their end. The course is co-taught by SCSS Director Dr. John Giggie and MA student Jana Venable, the current Vivian Malone Fellow and an […]

Violent History: A Southern Conversation

April 4, 2023

“Southern Conversations” offers an opportunity for students and professors to discuss broad questions and themes in U.S. Southern History. This semester’s conversation will focus on the topic of violence and how it has informed the historical scholarship and historians of the South. Drs. Lesley Gordon, John Giggie, and Joshua Rothman will serve as faculty participants. All are welcome to attend. This semester’s conversation will take place in the Summersell Room (room 251), ten Hoor Hall, at 5:30 PM, on April […]

Summersell Center Pushes Forward with Numerous Groundbreaking Initiatives

December 9, 2022

The Frances J. Summersell Center for the Study of the South’s (SCSS) fall 2022 semester marked new developments in its southern queer history project. Dr. John Giggie and Vivian Malone Fellow and doctoral student Isabella Garrison co-instructed the Southern Queer History course, the only course of its kind in the SEC dedicated to southern queer history research. Thirty undergraduates in the course worked with the Summersell Scholars, all returning undergraduate and graduate students, as they met with community leaders to […]

Summersell Center’s Queer History Project Hosts Galloway School Students

May 6, 2022

Dr. John Giggie and Isabella Garrison hosted high school students from Atlanta who are enrolled in the Galloway School’s southern queer history course. The students were led by Dr. Margaret Montgomery, a UA Department of History alumn, in an experience-based course about researching southern queer history. The visit centered on undergraduate research and experience, with an emphasis on learning the practice of local queer history. The high school students opened their visit with a campus tour led by Summersell Scholar […]

Voices of the Enslaved Wins 2022 Summersell Deep South Book Prize

April 28, 2022

The Frances S. Summersell Center for the Study of the South and the Charles G. Summersell Chair of Southern History at The University of Alabama are proud to announce the winner of the Sixth Biennial Summersell Deep South Book Prize for the best book on the history of the American South: Voices of the Enslaved: Love, Labor, and Longing in French Louisiana (UNC, 2019) by Sophie White, Professor of American Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Voices of the […]

The Summersell Center for the Study of the South Continues to Explore Hidden histories

November 18, 2021

The Frances S. Summersell Center for the Study of the South has continued the research of hidden Southern history with its two new classes in the fall semester. “Race and Injustice in the Modern South” explores crime, punishment, and race in the American South from enslavement through the rise of mass incarceration in the 21st century, with special attention paid to understanding the impact of these themes on a local level. In “Queer History South,” students explore the lives and […]

Summersell Center Director Quoted in Recent Articles

April 5, 2021

The Frances S. Summersell Center for the Study of the South Director, Dr. John Giggie, was quoted recently by both U.S. News and Realtor.com. Giggie added commentary to a story for U.S. News addressing a move by some leaders to include wayfinding aides to a proposed expansion of US Hwy 43 through Marengo and Greene Counties that would highlight the area’s important Civil Rights history as a way to boost tourism. Realtor.com interviewed Giggie for context on the historical origins of […]

History of Us Featured in Recent Edition of Collegian

February 2, 2021

A History of Us An article about Dr. Giggie’s “History of Us” class, the first Black History class taught in an Alabama public high school, was featured recently in the College of Arts & Sciences magazine, Collegian. “On a January morning, 18 Central High School students sat around a circle of tables in their first period class. It’s silent, but it’s not tense—there’s an air of thoughtfulness, of students searching to find their answer to the question posed moments before. […]

History of Us Curriculum Looks to Expand into Other Alabama Schools

November 18, 2020

History of Us, the ground-breaking, student-centered Black History course developed by the Frances J. Summersell Center of the Study of the South, in conjunction with Tuscaloosa’s Central High School, is being taught again this year. The success of the program has attracted attention from across the state, where other school systems are seeking to introduce the curriculum into their own classrooms. Birmingham’s WBHM explored the program’s success in a recent feature. “Eighteen-year-old Delphia McGraw of Tuscaloosa says she loves […]

Dr. John Giggie to Participate in David Mathews Center’s Civic Institute, August 21

August 18, 2020

The Mathews Center will host its annual Civic Institute on August 21st, 2020. The event will be held entirely online. The theme of this year’s event is Common Bonds: Collective Purpose and Civic Resilience in Uncertain Times. Dr. David Mathews, President and C.E.O. of the Kettering Foundation, will deliver a (pre-recorded) keynote address drawing on his experiences at the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare—where he served as Secretary during the Swine Flu outbreak of 1976. Mathews is an alum of The […]

Summersell Center Accepting Applications for Short-Term Research Fellowships

January 31, 2020

To support the study of southern history and promote the use of the manuscript collections housed at The University of Alabama, the Frances S. Summersell Center for the Study of the South and The University of Alabama Libraries will offer a total of eight research fellowships in the amount of $500 each for the 2020-2021 academic year. Eligible researchers will have projects that entail work to be conducted in southern history or southern studies at the W.S. Hoole Special Collections […]

Summersell Center and Civil Rights History Task Force Publish Civil Rights Trail Book

May 9, 2019

Director of the Frances J. Summersell Center for the Study of the South , Dr. John Giggie, working with students from his class on Religion and Civil Rights at The University of Alabama and members of the Tuscaloosa Civil Rights History Task Force, recently published a 37-page Civil Rights History Trail guide for the city of Tuscaloosa. Based partly on student research, the pamphlet chronicles the history of key events, institutions, and individuals associated with the local history of the movement. In […]